


shards of the world slip through my fingers like sand (you're the only good i've got so please don't leave me like the rest)

by i_write_shit_pls_read_it



Category: The Blacklist (US TV)
Genre: AU, Angst, F/M, High School AU, I had to learn how to use italics on ao3 just for this story, Little Fluff, Smut, also they have sex on a kitchen table, because I hate his miserable guts, before she married Tom Liz's name was Scott, it just doesn't work as well without italics, my h key is broken and it's awful, so her name is Liz Scott in this story, so that happens, still continuing my crusade against proofreading you ask? why yes yes I am, this is my first time writing a Ressler POV so bare with me, this is not a pro Tom Keen story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-23 23:02:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19711279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_write_shit_pls_read_it/pseuds/i_write_shit_pls_read_it
Summary: My good hoes. Now I know all my fics thus far have been set in the canon universe, but I was struck by the idea of straight-edge Ressler falls for girl from the wrong side of the tracks Liz and it sort of spiraled from there. Nobody asked for this, but I wanted to write it anyway. I’ve never tried to write in this style before. Please be nice to me.





	shards of the world slip through my fingers like sand (you're the only good i've got so please don't leave me like the rest)

**Author's Note:**

> When I say 'please be nice to me' I mean 'be nice to me or I will burst into tears because my self-confidence is as fragile as fine china' k thanks

Ressler’s dad had always drummed into him the importance of doing the right thing. Because his dad was also a cop, the right thing had always equated to following the law. The law is there to protect people. While there are always those in the justice system like the cops in his district, corrupt and greedy, most people are like Ressler’s dad, John, and Tommy Markin, his dad’s partner.

Tommy had been around since before Ressler could walk, giving him his old hat from his beat cop days for Ressler’s second-grade Halloween costume, teaching him how to deal with bullies, helping his older brother Pete out with his baseball swing and joking with his parents. It was almost like having a second dad.

For as long as Ressler could remember his dad and Tommy had sat down at the table when they got home at night, talking about how they were going to clean up their city, get rid of all the crooked cops in the pockets of criminals. They often joked about how once Ressler was older he’d help them out.

So when he got home late after a practice ACT test, and instead of laughing with Tommy his dad was glaring at a half-empty bottle, he didn’t entirely know what to expect, only that something was wrong.

He dropped his backpack on a chair, remembering that his mom Charlotte and Pete were at dinner to kick-off the start of baseball training season. His older brother’s last night of allowing himself to eat foods that aren’t healthy for the next three hundred and twenty days. He doesn’t know where Tommy is.

John explained he started working with an FBI task force recently, trying to apprehend a man named Raymond Reddington. Suspected and accused of over two dozen crimes, acquitted of all charges constantly on one technicality or another, in large part thanks to the number of people in the justice system Reddington kept in his pockets. He was hopeful that he might’ve been able to get a new informant, a girl Reddington acted as a sort of guardian angel to. He’d been working her for the past two weeks, but she still refused to talk.

“This man has murdered over sixty people Donnie. He’s sold weapons and secrets and chemicals and God only knows what else. And this girl could be the key to unlocking everything, she could help us bring down his whole damn empire, but she just won’t talk to us. He’s watched over her since she was a child, was friends with her parents. She feels a bond with him, and apparently couldn’t care less about all of those countless people he’s hurt.”

Ressler felt a sudden surge of anger at this girl he’d never met, at her selfishness. He asked if there was anything he could do, and John gave him a look of regret more profound than he’d ever seen on his father. “I need your help Donnie.”

He named the girl and Ressler felt a shock like cold water go through him.

Elizabeth Scott.

Liz.

They went to the same high school, he shared some classes with her, had walked past her in the halls.

John poured another glass for himself, drained it, and told Ressler he wanted him to become friends with Elizabeth. That maybe if she trusted him, she’d open up to informing on Reddington.

“I understand if this makes you uncomfortable Don, but we’ve exhausted every other avenue to catch this guy, and if we can’t get her to help us…”

He trailed off but Ressler didn’t care. Scott was helping and protecting a wanted criminal, driving his father to someone he hardly even recognized.

“Of course I’ll do it.”

***

Liz refused to smoke for two reasons.

One, her adopted father, Sam, had died of lung cancer when she was twelve, and she had no intention of following in his footsteps. And two, she preferred her bad decisions with hangovers.

Her ex-boyfriend, Tom Keen, had always been trying to get her to smoke. He’d always been trying to get her to do a lot of things, right up until she left him after he beat the crap out of her two months ago.

“Lizzy!”

She felt bile rise up in the back of her throat. Tom was the only one who had ever called her Lizzy.

She kept her head up and refused to quicken her steps, not wanting him to know how her stomach curled in on itself in fear every time she heard him.

Liz allowed herself a single deep inhale as he ran up and stepped in front of her, cutting off her path to chemistry.

She glared at him, faking no ounce of hatred she felt. “Get out of my way Tom.”

He grinned that harmless looking grin she’d learned to see as predatory, and pushed up the glasses that he didn’t even need. “Come on Lizzy, can’t you even spare a moment to talk with the fath–”

“Shut up,” she hissed, glancing around to see who might’ve heard.

Tom’s smile didn’t change, but a certain smugness entered his expression. With a jerk of his head, he gestured for her to follow him, as though she were no better than a dog. Then again, in his eyes, she probably wasn’t.

He led her outside the school, and over to the ceramics building that was currently being renovated. Liz felt apprehension start to gather in her fingertips, but she ignored it. They were at school at ten in the morning, it wasn’t like he could hurt her.

They went inside, and Tom locked the door behind them. A cold chill went down Liz’s spine.

Tom wanted to know how she could’ve done what she did. Liz snapped that it had been none of his business. They started arguing, and then they started shouting, and then suddenly Tom lunged at her, grabbing her by the neck and shoving her up against the wall.

Liz gasped involuntarily as her head slammed backwards, scrabbling at his arm with her hands but he was stronger than her, he’d always been stronger than her. She tried to kick at him, but his entire body was pressed against hers, stopping her from bringing her legs or even knees up.

He was ranting, eyes crazed, mouth twisted, talking about how they could correct her mistake, the hand not around her neck running beneath the waistband of her jeans.

Desperation filled her, mixing with adrenaline, and she grasped for the side pocket of her backpack, grabbing out the switchblade she’d bought after their break up.

Releasing the blade, she swung it up at his hand.

Tom yelled in surprise and pain, and dropped her, stepping away.

Liz – who had been up on her tip toes – stumbled as she regained her footing, nearly tripping in her haste to get away from him. She blinked spots out of her eyes, seeing that lack of oxygen and minimal maneuvering room had resulted in her hardly scratching Tom. She brandished the blade, hurriedly trying to suck in air as he glared at her, the long, shallow scratch on his arm bleeding freely.

He started advancing again as Liz dropped her bag and adjusted her grip, wishing she knew how to use the weapon better, wishing he wasn’t between her and the door.

Tom came at her and Liz jabbed at him, he danced back, knocking her hand out of the way, the blade clattering out of her grip and to the floor. He stepped forward again and Liz moved to the side, bringing up her knee intending to strike him square in the ribs.

She made contact, but his arm had shot out sideways when she dodged, and wrapped around her shoulders, tugging her back against his chest. His other hand snapped open the button on her jeans and Liz whipped her head back, cracking into his nose.

Tom cursed loudly, spun her around and punched Liz in the face so hard she thought her eye might have actually burst inside her skull.

The force of it knocked her backwards and she rolled over a desk and fell to the floor, head spinning, unable to move.

Liz pressed her hand up to her face, trying to get up as someone kicked the door so hard it practically exploded open.

A tall kid with blond hair was standing in the doorway, looking furious. Liz thought she might’ve had algebra with him, his name was Daniel or Dominic or something that started with a D.

She saw Tom glance over at him. “I’d walk away if I were you Ressler.”

Liz closed her eyes, knowing Ressler would listen, that he would go and leave her here with Tom.

“Well you’re clearly not me, on the basis that I’m taller and much better looking. So how about you get away from Scott, and we’ll go from there.”

Liz opened her eyes, convinced she’d heard wrong. But no, there he was, still standing there, watching them.

She tried to force herself to her feet but winced, and grunted in pain, her legs refusing to support her. Ressler glanced at her, his expression hard as steel.

Tom had never been one to pick a fight he wasn’t sure he could win, so he settled for winking at Liz, his face a leer. “I’ll see you around Lizzy.”

He sauntered out, confidence in every line of his body, shouldering forcibly past Ressler.

As soon as Tom was past him, Ressler ran over to Liz, dropping down beside her. “Jesus Scott, what happened in here?”

Still sucking in air, she gasped out, “Lover’s… spat.”

He put a hand beneath her chin, tilting her face up to look more closely at her. His touch was cool and clinical, and somehow relaxed her. “Looks more like assault to me. I’m calling the cops.”

Panic shot through Liz like a lance and she gripped his wrist. " _No._ "

He frowned, looking confused. “No? Listen, they can help you. My dad–”

“I said no,” she snapped. “I’ve gone to the cops about Tom before, it never works out in my favor.”

She threw his hand off and carefully forced herself to stand, eye still stinging. He stood with her, a scowl now fixed on his face. “So what, you’re just going to let him do this to you whenever he wants?”

Liz spotted her switchblade on the floor where Tom had knocked it, and walked over to pick it up, hoping he wouldn’t notice as she re-buttoned her jeans. “Listen Daniel, I appreciate your inherent masculine need to play Superman, but I can handle Tom, and how I choose to do it is none of your business.”

She looked around for her backpack, and saw Ressler holding it out to her. “My name’s Donald, actually, but I go by Ressler.”

Liz scowled, and walked over to grab the bag from him. “Whatever.”

“Do you need me to walk you to the nurse?”

Unable to help herself, Liz laughed. “Yeah, because I’m perfectly capable of explaining how all this–” she gestured to herself “–happened. I’ll just head home.”

Ressler looked as though she’d just declared she murdered babies in her spare time. “It’s the middle of the day.”

She raised her eyebrows, ignoring the sting from moving the left side of her face. “And?”

Liz hitched her bag higher on her shoulder, and walked out the door. “Do you at least need a ride?” Ressler called, following after her.

She scowled at him. “Why are you so determined to help me? What were you even doing over here anyway?” She was angry at herself for not having thought to ask it before now.

Now he looked slightly guilty. “I was looking for you.”

She immediately stepped back from him, scanning around for any signs of backup. “Why?” Liz demanded. “What do you want?”

He raised his hands, as if to show he had no weapons. It didn’t do much to reassure her. “My dad asked me to do it. He was hoping if I could get you to trust me, you’d be more willing to help him.”

Liz itched to pull her switchblade back out. “Who’s your dad?”

“Detective John Morgan.”

Liz said a word that Sam would’ve washed her mouth out with soap for using. “That prick?” She took another step back. “Listen, you can tell your daddy dearest that I already told him I’m no snitch, and Red’s not a bad person. Now how about you just stay the hell away from me?”

Ressler folded his arms. The sleeves of his grey jacket were rolled up, exposing tanned forearms. She was furious with herself for noticing. “How about you at least let me give you a ride, considering I just saved your ass.”

Her scowl deepened. “I had it under control.”

“Didn’t look like it from where I was standing.”

Liz was angry enough to explode. “God you’re such a Boy Scout. You can give me a stupid ride, but only because I don’t feel like walking all the way back on this leg.”

Ressler grinned, and headed over to the student parking lot, Liz begrudgingly following. He drove a slightly dinged up Toyota painted so deep a blue it was almost black.

He actually opened the passenger door for Liz, and she couldn’t hold back a derisive snort. This ought to be an interesting ride.

***

Ressler knew limited information about Elizabeth Scott. She’d dated Tom Keen for most of sophomore year, all of last summer, and some of junior year. She liked wearing jeans and large jackets, paired with crop tops to show off her belly button piercing. She could’ve gotten into the honors math course, but decided not to. She refused to help out his dad, and apparently her ex-boyfriend liked to beat her up.

He glanced over at her as he pulled out of the school lot. Her eye had already swelled up dramatically, and was in the middle of turning an alarming purple color. She was clutching her backpack in her lap and was glaring sullenly out the window, hair tucked behind her ears.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go to the cops?” He couldn’t help it.

Scott scowled at him. She did that a lot. Then again, he didn’t exactly have a whole lot of interactions to draw from. “I told you, that’s none of your business. Turn left up here.”

Ressler shrugged as he pulled into the turn lane. “We ought to fill the drive somehow.”

She laughed, a bitter and mirthless sound. “Oh, and I’m just supposed to believe this has nothing to do with your dad wanting me to trust you? Why do you have different names anyway?”

“I took my mom’s name, my older brother took my dad’s,” he explained. “Your turn. Why aren’t you going to the police?”

“Do you ever shut up?” Scott groused, before slouching down in the seat with a sigh. “You heard of Halcyon?”

Ressler nodded, most people had. “Sure, private security company. They help out at the school.”

“That’s just the local branch, they do a hell of a lot more than that. Hostage negotiations, private armies, international shit. Turn right. Anyway, the CEO, Susan Hargraves, adopted Tom when he was a baby. She’s got connections in every branch of law enforcement, so if I so much as breath an accusation in his direction she’ll tear my life apart.”

A feeling of disquiet settled in Ressler’s gut. “You don’t know that.”

“I do know that. Because I went to the police after he beat the shit out of me two months ago, and she told me to drop it, and then spelled out what would happen if I didn’t. I figure it’s not worth the drama. I mean what’s the worst he can do, kill me?”

Ressler was so distracted staring at her he almost missed that the light had turned red, and slammed on the breaks before he could crash into the car in front of him. “Yes.” His tone was incredulous. “Killing you is probably the worst thing he can do.”

Scott shrugged, as though she couldn’t be bothered to care one way or another. “He can try.”

Ressler shook his head in disbelief, not speaking again until the light changed to green. “What started this anyway? Or was he like this the entire time you two were together?” He had a feeling she was more than a little in shock, otherwise she probably wouldn’t be telling him any of this, and he was definitely going to hell for taking advantage of it. But he genuinely wanted to know. He knew what a person looked like when they were drowning, and she had suffering written all over her.

Scott shook her head, eyes going a little misty. “Turn left at the next light. And no, he didn’t. It was great at first. We were in love, or at least I was. I started going out with him after my friend Meera died. We grew up next to each other, but she couldn’t go to high school because her mom was sick all the time, and she needed to get a job to help pay the bills. She was heading home from the graveyard shift one night when she got mugged. The doctors said there was nothing they could do.”

Her voice was tight, and Ressler wanted to offer sympathy, but just let her keep talking.

“Tom showed up at my house when I didn’t go to school the next day, said he’d heard about what happened, gave me a shoulder to cry on, and we grew from there. No don’t turn again, keep going straight.”

They were now in a slightly sketchy part of town, and Ressler could feel his uncertainty growing. She was not at all what he’d expected her to be.

He thought she might keep talking, in that unnervingly blunt way of hers, but she was silent as he drove down the road. “So what made him change like that?” Ressler pressed.

But Scott’s eyes narrowed and her lips pursed, and she turned her face back to the window. “I made a choice he disagreed with.”

“And so he chose to beat you up.”

Her lips quirked upwards, a bitter sort of smile. “It was a very big choice.”

Scott seemed to regain her wits and refused to say much more for the last few minutes of the ride, answering all his questions with silence or acidic sarcasm. She eventually instructed him to park in front of a slightly run-down house with a light blue paint job.

She walked inside and after a moment’s hesitation he joined her, following her lead and kicking his shoes and socks off at the door.

When he crossed the threshold, Scott suddenly shrieked, and he panicked before realizing it was a sound of elation, not terror. He shut the door and walked over to see her embracing an older, round man in a suit and scarf, hat in hand. There was another man behind them, dark-skinned and bald, smiling at them both. When he saw Ressler however, his hand immediately went inside his jacket and Ressler got the distinct feeling he was gripping a weapon.

“Elizabeth, who is this?”

Scott drew back and turned around, scowling when she saw Ressler standing in the hallway. “Relax Dembe, this is just Ressler, he gave me a ride home.”

The man in a suit frowned, clearly not reassured. “Please tell me he’s not also the one who bruised your beautiful face.”

Scott swatted his hand away. “No, that was Tom.”

Dembe ‘tched’, a sound of disgust, and the other man scowled in a way that looks so like Scott’s that Ressler actually blinked. “Elizabeth, I’ve told you, if you’d just let me handle him–”

“You can’t solve all my problems Raymond,” she said fondly, and the name was like fire in Ressler’s brain.

“Raymond? Raymond Reddington?”

As it turned out, this was the very man who kept his father up at night, poring over files and depositions and briefings and large manila folders stamped CLASSIFIED in large red letters.

He felt uncomfortable, but was also unwilling to leave, at least until Scott came and none-too-gently guided him out. “Not that I don’t appreciate a dose of good old-fashioned chivalry, but I got it from here.”

***

Reddington was apparently of the opinion that Ressler was handsome. Liz supposed she ought to place more stock in his opinion, considering he’d never liked Tom all that much.

Liz explained who his dad was, and what he wanted from her. Despite being her legal guardian, Reddington had been on “business trips” the last few weeks, and she hadn’t wanted to tell him about who’d approached her over the phone.

Reddington got that strange sort of smile he often got when she was about to get entangled in his schemes.

Knowing she wouldn’t like where this was headed, Liz plopped down into her typical seat at the kitchen table, pressing the ice pack Dembe had given her to her left eye and cheek.

Reddington had apparently already known about Detective Morgan, including that he might approach Liz, but ‘hadn’t wanted to worry her about what could be nothing’. He had, however, cut his “business trip” short just in case.

“And don’t worry,” he added. “I have a plan for dealing with Morgan and Sons.”

Liz raised her eyebrows – well, her right eyebrow – suspiciously. “Oh yeah, what’s that?”

***

Ressler didn’t really have a best friend, but he had a couple of casual friends, not counting Pete. Aram, a computer nerd who could find out anything about anyone, and Samar, who had moved over from Israel freshman year. Considering the two of them were dating, he always felt like he was third-wheeling whenever he hung out with them, which was typically for lunch and school projects since they shared most of the same classes.

There were a few other students he was friendly with, but he usually preferred to hang out with Aram and Samar, given their lack of prying about his personal life. Aram was shy enough that a pointed glare from Ressler could normally shut him up if he dug too deep, and Samar just didn’t care.

He was sitting with them the day after pulling Tom Keen off of Scott, trying to figure out a way to get her to trust him. She’d opened up in the car ride after all, but he was still fairly certain that had just been the shock talking.

And he could try to tell himself that he was doing this entirely for his dad, but he couldn’t shut up the voice in the back of his head that screamed at him that this girl needed help, couldn’t shake the feeling that she was dancing dangerously close to a cliff’s edge.

So when she tossed her backpack onto the table in front of him, disrupting Aram and Samar’s make out session and nearly flattening his sandwich, only to calmly swing herself into the seat next to him, Ressler was surprised to say the least, and not just because of the rainbow of bruises clear on her body.

Turns out, Raymond Reddington and John Morgan think a lot more alike than Ressler cared to admit, because Scott informed him with a grim smile that Reddington now wanted Scott to befriend him.

He couldn’t stop himself from laughing out loud.

***

The next month was spent carefully poking and prodding at each other, looking for weak spots. One thing Ressler learned for sure, is that Liz hadn’t opened up to him out of shock. She had trauma in spades, and she wrapped it around herself like barbed wire, throwing it in the face of everyone who tried to get close to her.

Her best friend Meera, who had died in a random mugging.

Her father, a business man named Alexander Kirk, who she had shot and killed in a house fire when she was four-years-old to protect her mother.

How that same mother, Katarina, had been murdered shortly after, retribution by the Russian mafia for the death of her husband.

Her adopted father, Sam Scott, a friend of her mother’s, who had died from lung cancer when she was twelve.

Even her ex-boyfriend, Tom Keen, who had a powerful mother and liked to leer at her in the hallways, and sometimes follow her home from school just to prove that he could.

The one thing she kept close to herself was the event that had morphed her seemingly perfect boyfriend into a serial killer caricature practically overnight.

But Ressler learned other things about her, too. It was really no surprise, considering the amount of times they forced their presence upon each other, each trying to get the other to crack first.

He learned that she was fluent in Russian, hated law enforcement almost as much as she hated pancakes, and that she trusted Reddington with her life. Her favorite color was green, her favorite holiday was her birthday, and the summer before freshman year she’d dyed her hair blonde for a month.

He’d laughed so hard that the water he was drinking came out his nose upon hearing this.

“Blonde?”

Her lips twitching upward, Liz nodded. “It was a spur of the moment thing. Meera didn’t think I would actually do it, so of course I had to prove her wrong.”

Still laughing as he wiped his mouth dry, Ressler wondered when she stopped being Scott to him, and became Liz instead.

***

Liz was still waiting for Ressler to look at her in disgust, to simply get up and walk away, decide she was too broken to deal with.

His loyalty to his father was apparently stronger than she’d first thought. She would’ve been impressed if it wasn’t so inconvenient.

But as she learned over the next month as they somehow grew closer, Ressler held loyalty in extremely high regard.

He also liked French toast, and springtime, and going for runs in the morning fog. His Spanish was shockingly good, his math and chemistry just barely passable, and his favorite color was grey.

And when he was thirteen, his best friend Audrey had committed suicide.

His voice shook a little when he said it, and Liz had had to physically restrain herself from comforting him. If there was one thing she understood in this world, it was pain.

They started spending time at one another’s houses, more often hers than Ressler’s. She sometimes stole his phone while he was in the bathroom, and beat his high scores on candy crush.

He was talking with Aram at the moment, as Liz waited idly next to his car, frowning at her hair in the reflection of his window. She ran her fingers through it a few times, and adjusted her jeans so they sat slightly lower on her hips, and pulled up her midriff-baring top so that it also showed off her lacy blue bra.

In addition to having the moral righteousness of a Biblical character, Ressler seemingly had the sexual experience of a teenybopper, and Liz took great fun in seeing how red she could get his face to turn. It wasn’t even that she expected him to sleep with her – though she certainly wouldn’t refuse if he asked – but it was nice to be able to tease someone, and not fear retaliation.

Ressler, she somehow knew, would never betray her like Tom had.

“Lizzy!”

Speak of the fucking devil.

She turned, hand going for the knife in her pocket, as Tom jogged up, grinning that same predatory grin.

He ran the same spiel about getting back together, and ‘correcting’ her ‘mistake’. It was all Liz could do not to grab him by the shirt collar and throw him through Ressler’s squeakily clean front window.

Liz would be lying if she said she didn’t sigh in relief when Ressler showed up a couple seconds later, concern and anger etched on his face in equal measure at the sight of Tom.

Tom hadn’t yet seen him, and spanned a hand over Liz’s stomach, pulling lightly at the piercing in a way that made her nauseous. “You’ll come back to me eventually, one way or another,” he whispered.

She glanced over at Ressler, desperate, and saw in some shock that the concern had given way to fury.

He reached Tom in another few steps, grabbed his shoulder to spin him around, and punched him hard in the jaw.

Liz cried out in shock as Tom reeled back, and then leapt at Ressler with a snarl. Next thing she knew the two of them were rolling on the ground, throwing fists and feet, and a small crowd had gathered and a teacher was pulling the two boys apart and yelling at them both.

There was a slight ringing noise in her ears, and so she couldn’t hear what Mr. Cooper said, something about taking responsibility, and settling their personal grievances off school property.

Ressler picked his bag up from where he’d dropped it, and stalked over to where Liz was still waiting by the car, practically wrenching the door off its hinges.

“Are you coming or what?” he demanded.

Determinedly not looking at Tom, Liz slid into the car, trying not to read into how he hadn’t opened the door for her. Ressler always opened the door for her.

When they got back to her place after a stiflingly silent car ride, she found a letter from Reddington saying he had business in Quebec and would be back in a few weeks. She swallowed back a sigh. She loved Raymond, truly, but she loved his constantly packed and shifting schedule considerably less.

Normally Liz spent their time either digging up some new sob story she had not yet shared, or helping Ressler with the math homework he so struggled with. But today, after seeing him tackle Tom into the pavement, Liz found herself unable to focus. Ressler apparently shared her problem, his knee jostling up and down repeatedly.

“He got me pregnant.”

Her eyes widened as she said the words, and she hastily dropped her gaze to the table, feigning nonchalance despite her suddenly rapid heartbeat. She hadn’t meant to tell him this.

“Tom, I mean. He got me pregnant. He told me he was using protection, but turned out he was taking the condoms off without telling me. I almost threw up when the test was positive, but he was ecstatic, told me now I’d have to stay with him, that I had no choice. I got an abortion and he lost his goddamned mind when he found out, just completely beat the shit out of me. That was when I went to the police and his mom told me to let it go. Said if I didn’t want something like this to happen I shouldn’t have put out so easily.”

Struggling to breathe through the whirlwind of emotions, predominantly hurt, knotting up her stomach, she glanced up at Ressler’s face and saw he had gone scarily calm.

“That was a really shitty thing for him to do. Did you report it?”

Liz scowled and threw down her pen in disgust. “Why is that always your first question?” she demanded. “No I didn’t report it; the sex was consensual even if the lack of protection wasn’t. I’m not an idiot, I know how that case would go even if his mother wasn’t who she is.”

Ressler was already shaking his head. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

But Liz wasn’t done. “When are you going to learn that the way the legal system treats people like you and the way it treats people like me are two very different things? We don’t all have respected cops for fathers.”

“No,” he snapped, and she could see his own temper rising. “Some of us have wanted felons for guardians, and refuse to help the police catch him.”

“Raymond has never been convicted of any of the crimes he’s been accused of.” Liz realized at some point they’d both stood up. “Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? And even if he has done those things, what do you think will happen to me if he goes away? I’ll go into the system, and we both know how they treat kids there. Then I age out and am entirely on my own, and what exactly have I done that’s so horrible that I deserve that?”

“Reddington has hurt people!”

“Everyone has hurt people!”

***

Ressler’s temper had been building all day, starting this morning when John had pressed him on how he was doing with Liz, then when he’d gotten a B plus on a Spanish pop quiz for some stupid grammatical errors, his shoes kept coming untied all day, and then he’d seen Keen getting handsy with Liz on the side of his car, seen her discomfort and lost it. He’d hoped fighting with Keen would help soothe his temper, but they’d been pulled apart too soon and so all it had done was force him to reign his emotions back in check.

Then Liz had told him the truth about what Keen had done to her, how he’d betrayed her trust in one of the worst ways possible, and somehow, they’d started fighting even though he wasn’t angry with her. And now she was standing there in front of him, face flushed, hands clenched, shirt riding up so high it was hardly there, and all he could think was that she’d never looked so beautiful.

Ressler stepped forward to close the minimal distance between them, cupped her face in his hands and kissed her.

She gasped beneath his mouth, and he kissed her harder, urgently moving his mouth on hers, before realizing with horror she wasn’t kissing him back.

Ressler hurriedly stepped away, though it felt like he was tearing his own skin off, and looked at Liz.

Her mouth was slightly open, her eyes wide and unblinking, and this might have been the first time he’d seen her speechless.

He thought he might actually choke on shame, knowing she’d probably never speak to him again, and opened his mouth to apologize, but before he could she moved forward, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.

Ressler’s arms went around her waist, pulling her into him, and he moaned at the feeling of her soft skin beneath his hands.

Her lips were hot and feverish under his own as they pulled each other closer, trying to merge their bodies into one. Liz pulled back her arms and tugged his jacket off, and he let her, already knowing he could never stop her from doing anything, not that he even wanted to stop her.

He thought the blood running through his veins might actually have been replaced by gasoline, because each kiss seemed to set him on fire, burning him up from the inside out.

Liz’s fingers were now at the hem of his shirt, and they broke away as he helped her pull it off as quickly as possible, and Ressler found himself wishing he worked out more than his morning runs, that his body was muscled and not just toned. Didn’t girls like that sort of thing?

He leaned forward to kiss her– for the rest of his life he may never want to do anything else but kiss her – but she held back, raising her hands up to trace his cheekbones, her breathing heavy as she stared at his face in wonderment. Ressler felt his throat go a little dry, unsure what would happen if she saw something she didn’t like. He’d never done this sort of thing with anyone before, never even kissed anyone except Samar at a game of spin-the-bottle their freshman year.

But then Liz was kissing him again and he forgot how to think, how to do anything really except kiss her back. Her tongue gently pried open his mouth, their kisses growing hotter and hungrier and more desperate, and then Liz drew back to pull off her own tiny shirt and he thought his brain might actually short circuit at the sight of her in nothing but jeans and a lacy blue _thing._

He was fairly certain from all the CW shows Pete forced him to watch that when two people were having sex, it was supposed to be in a bed. But Ressler didn’t think he’d be able to wait that long, not with the table right behind them, and really, wasn’t any horizontal surface good enough?

Liz apparently had the same thought process, because she lifted herself up onto the table and beckoned him towards her as she bit her lower lip. Feeling slightly dazed, he climbed up after her, and as she lay down beneath him, all he could think was that this could not be comfortable for her back, but she didn’t seem to mind.

It had been too long since the last time he kissed her, so he brought their lips together again, hands playing with her silky hair, and as she arched up into him he felt her belly button piercing press into the skin right above his jeans. He moaned into the kiss, unable to control the way his body reacted to the sensation, and felt her smile against his mouth, knowing she could feel how turned on he was getting.

Her hands came up to grip his face, running greedy fingers through his hair, and he experimentally bit down on her lower lip, causing Liz to gasp in what he hoped was pleasure, as her hands contracted into fists.

Rising up onto his knees, Ressler began to take off his jeans, and Liz gave a little shake of her head as she reached up to grab his hands. She licked her lips before speaking. “Do you have—”

“In my backpack,” he answered, and she nodded before unzipping him. His brother had demanded he carry protection with him at all times, ‘just in case’, and threatened Ressler that if he didn’t keep a condom in his wallet Pete would tape one to his forehead.

His jeans were now undone, and Liz worked on her own, and Ressler momentarily got down off the table to pull them off her legs, marveling at the miles of golden-brown skin that was unveiled.

He shucked off his own pants next, and grabbed his wallet out of his backpack – which was thankfully right next to them – before getting back on the table. He leaned over her, lining their bodies up, and cupped her face with his right hand, using his other arm to prop himself up.

At first, they just kissed, and while Ressler was eager he was also glad, and thankful for the chance to settle his nerves about what came next. Oh God, what if he was horrible?

After a couple minutes, Liz’s hands, which had been tracing patterns on his back, dipped down to sweep ever so slightly beneath the waistband of his boxers, and he felt himself momentarily stop breathing. He rose up and stared at her bra, and tried not to frown. “How…” he swallowed and tried again. “How does it come off?” He could feel himself blushing, could hear the slight desperation in his voice.

Liz gave a breathless laugh, and sat up slightly. “It hooks in the back.” Her tone was light, and he relaxed a little. She gripped his hands with her own small ones, and guided them around her body to the clasp. His fingers fumbled a bit, and it took him four tries, but when he finally got it open and Liz tossed it somewhere in the kitchen, Ressler inhaled sharply, unable to tear his eyes away from her.

Liz giggled. “It’s like you’ve never seen a girl naked before,” she teased.

Ressler looked away, his insides roiling, certain she would laugh at how inexperienced he was, knowing she could read it in the flush that covered his skin at her words.

“Oh.” She sounded surprised now. “This is your first time?”

He forced himself to look at her eyes and nodded, his entire body tense. But her eyes were soft, and she was smiling at him. His legs were bracketing her hips, and she sat up and slowly dragged her hands up his chest to his shoulders and to his neck, threading her fingers together at the sensitive nape of his neck. “Don’t worry, I’ll walk you through it.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper, and when she kissed him again it was gentle.

She guided him back down on top of her, her kisses sweet – there was a faint sugary taste to her mouth and he had no idea where it came from – and carefully moved his hands up to cup her breasts.

Ressler gasped, he couldn’t help it, pulling back from the kiss so he could watch her reactions, see what she liked. He cautiously kneaded her breasts, and Liz sighed in contentment, eyes fluttering closed, but when he ran his thumbs over her nipples her hand slammed down on the table, gripping the edge and she cried out, a strangled ‘oh’ sound. He hesitated, hands stilling. “Is this okay?”

Liz opened her eyes to stare up at him incredulously. “Don’t stop,” she demanded.

He let himself grin at her, and continued experimenting, still nervous but a little less terrified of messing up. He’d always been a fast study, and he quickly learned how to best turn Liz into a moaning, shivering mess beneath his hands.

Just as Ressler felt he was finally getting in control, Liz did something with her legs and managed to roll them over so he was beneath her. It wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as he’d imagined. Her eyes seemed to dance at him as she slid her fingers beneath his dark green Old Navy boxers and pulled them down, smooth and sure, and moved back as she used her feet to kick them the rest of the way off.

He expected her to come back up but instead she moved farther back, so she was sitting at his knees. Ressler frowned, about to ask her what she was doing, when Liz winked up at him, lowered her head and—

“Oh _shit._ ”

Ressler gripped the edge of the table, closing his eyes, before silently ordering himself to open them back up, knowing that the sight of Liz Scott between his legs, looking up at him through her lashes, was one he wanted to remember for the rest of his life.

When he was so hard that it physically hurt, Liz drew back, her mouth wet, and crawled upwards, before stripping off a pair of barely-there underwear that matched the bra she’d discarded. He felt his cheeks heat up as he stared at her, and then looked back up at her eyes.

Grabbing the condom Liz slid it on him, and Ressler gritted his teeth at her touch. Then she took his hands in hers and placed them on her hips, holding him holding her, as Liz slowly lowered herself all the way down.

Her head fell back and she gasped, and Ressler’s fingers tightened as she started rocking back and forth, grinding herself on him, sweat shining on the column of her throat. Her hands came down on his stomach for balance as she moved faster, and something was building in the base of his spine, increasing with every shift of her hips, every breathy moan from her mouth.

The climax hit, and he gripped her hard enough to bruise, grunting as something akin to heroin coursed through him. When he came back down to earth, Liz reached for his hand, just one this time, and brought it over to where they were joined. As his fingers touched her somewhere he’d never dreamed of touching a girl before, Liz cried out and started writhing. Ressler tried to replicate what he’d done earlier with her breasts, seeing what got the best reactions. Not long after her entire body seized up, he could _feel_ everywhere she went rigid, and then she fell forward on top of him, breathing hard.

A trickle of the uncertainty returned, and he placed the hand that he hadn’t just been using on her back, stroking her silky hair, as he searched for something meaningful or romantic to say. Instead what came out was, “Somehow I never thought I’d lose my virginity on a kitchen table.”

Liz laughed.

***

Over the next two weeks, Ressler found himself practically counting the minutes every time he and Liz were apart. When he was with her, all he wanted was to kiss her, and when he wasn’t with her, he wanted to be.

But the time they spent together, Liz taught him how to do a lot more than just kiss. He learned how to make her feel good – and there was nothing he loved more than making Liz feel good – with his hands and his mouth. He learned about the spot where her neck met her right shoulder, and how when he kissed it she moaned out loud. He learned how to get her all the way to the edge just by playing with her breasts, and that the place between them was especially sensitive. He learned it drove her wild when he used his teeth to tug lightly at her belly button piercing. He also learned that if he took his mouth lower, down to where he’d used his hands to bring her to the end the first time, and kissed her there, it caused Liz to cry out in ecstasy. And he learned if he sucked at the burn scar on her right wrist she’d close her eyes and sigh with pleasure.

His parents of course, had no idea. Charlotte didn’t know what John had asked him to do, John thought he and Liz were just friends, and Pete suspected there was a girl but was clueless as to who.

Aram and Samar knew, mostly because they’d banned him and Liz from eating lunch with them until they toned down the PDA, but also because he often used Aram as an alibi for when he wanted to spend the night at Liz’s place.

It was currently one of those nights, and he was lying with Liz in bed, placing kisses on her shoulder blades. If she were an angel, it’d be right where her wings were.

She hummed beneath him, but moved so she could pull him down next to her. “Just lie down with me Ress,” she murmured, tucking herself into the crook of his arm.

He sighed, stroking her skin. “I can’t, Pete and my mom are out of town for a baseball game this weekend which means I need to be back before midnight, and I’m already way past curfew.”

“Ugh, curfew.” Liz wrinkled her nose. “I personally think I’m much more entertaining than a curfew.”

She leaned up to press their lips together as he grinned. “Oh, infinitely more interesting. But my parents are already wondering when Aram and I became such great friends, and I think my mom’s starting to suspect that I’m gay.”

A laugh burst out of Liz, and she dropped her head back down to the pillows. She calmed down after a while, opened her mouth to speak, and promptly dissolved into laughter again. “What… what gives you that impression?” she finally managed to ask.

“I found her reading a book about supportive parenting to LGBT youth, and she told me and Pete a few nights ago at dinner that if we are gay it’s totally natural.”

Liz started cackling again. “At least her heart is in the right place if nothing else.”

They kissed for a couple more minutes, before Ressler drew back reluctantly. “Okay, now I really have to go.” Before he could start kissing her again, he quickly stood from the bed, searching for his clothes that had been scattered throughout the room, and pulling them on.

Liz watched him from the bed with hooded eyes, a slight pouty expression on her face. “Don’t I at least get a kiss goodbye?” She tapped her cheek expectantly.

Ressler rolled his eyes as he did up his jeans, but there was humor in it, and walked over to place a chaste kiss on her cheek. Except she turned at the last minute so that he kissed her lips instead, and he ended up missing curfew by a lot more.

***

A banging on her door woke Liz with a start. Confused, she glanced at the clock on her nightstand and saw that it was just after two in the morning.

The ceaseless banging continued, and Liz was willing to bet it wasn’t a burglar, but she also didn’t want to answer the door naked, so she quickly untangled herself from the sheets and pulled on a nightshirt and panties, barely able to hear the rain over the pounding.

By the time she made it to the front hallway, she half suspected the door might get knocked off its hinges if whoever it was kept this up much longer. She threw open the door and Ressler nearly hit her in the face as he moved to knock again.

She blinked, not sure if she was seeing things, but no, there he was at one in the morning, panting like he’d just run a marathon, hair plastered to his face, clothes stuck to his body.

“Ressler, what on earth—”

But she didn’t get the chance to finish her question because he surged forward and threw his arms around her. Confused, she gripped him back, his shoulders shaking as she kicked the door shut. He drew back, turned and locked the door, and when he faced her again Liz saw that his face was wet from tears, not just the rain. He hugged her again, and it wasn’t just his shoulders shaking but his entire body, he was trembling all over like a leaf.

Needing answers, Liz pulled back and forced him to look at her. “Ressler, what is going on? Did you run all the way here, because you’re soaking wet, it’s the middle of the night—”

“My father’s dead.”

His voice was hollow, and Liz felt her mouth drop open as he said it. She shook her head, unable to believe the words. “Ressler,” she started, not even knowing what to say, but he wasn’t done.

“Tommy Markin killed him.”

Liz actually took a step back, needing physical space to process this news. Ressler had grown up with Tommy Markin as a second father figure, he’d been a friend of his family’s for almost two decades.

She placed her hands on his shoulders, he was still shaking, and drew him forwards. “Come on, we need to get you out of those clothes.”

He had, as it turned out, run the nine miles to her house.

After he changed into some clothes he left there last week, Ressler told her the whole story in that same hollow voice.

He hadn’t wanted his dad to know how late he’d gotten home, and so he parked on the street and snuck in his bedroom window. He’d heard voices arguing, and crept down the hallway to see what was going on. Tommy and his dad had been fighting, his dad angrier than Ressler had ever seen him before, shouting about how he was a disgrace to the badge, and what had he done, and how could he.

Until Tommy had suddenly stopped talking, pulled out his gun and shot his dad three times in the chest.

Ressler had run back to his room, crawled back out the window but forgotten the car keys, and run straight back to Liz.

“I didn’t know where else to go.” He looked up at her from where he was sitting on her bed and his eyes were glassy.

Liz sat down next to Ressler, wrapped her arms around him, and held him as he started sobbing again. It was a purely animal sound, of anguish and despair, and he gripped her so tightly she thought he might actually pull her skin from her bones but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

When he was finally wrung out, she gently pushed him down to lie on the bed, but kept holding him, running soothing fingers over his shoulders, until he fell into what she hoped was a dreamless sleep, and she got up to grab her cellphone, dialing one of only two starred contacts.

Raymond answered on the third ring, not surprising since it was almost midmorning in Prague.

“Elizabeth, what’s wrong?”

***

Raymond offered to kill Tommy, but Ressler was adamant he just be placed in prison. “Cops don’t do well in prison,” he said in that same toneless voice, a crooked sort of smile on his face. And so Raymond had a cop on his payroll – they didn’t trust any others – come over to take Ressler’s statement as Liz held his limp hand in her own. Tommy was passing off the murder as a robbery gone bad, thankfully he had no idea Ressler had been in the house, and the next few months were full of anguish.

His mother couldn’t stop her sobbing, and Pete punched anything that moved, and both of them could hardly stand to be around Ressler. Liz knew he thought they blamed him, and nothing she nor Raymond could say would dissuade him.

“Tommy was their friend and he murdered someone they both love very dearly. You saw it happen, and so every time they see you it’s like having stitches torn out.”

Ressler accepted Raymond’s explanation with a miniscule dip of his head that could barely be counted as a nod, and Liz knew he didn’t care. All he did care about was his father was dead and the rest of his family didn’t even want to look at him.

Raymond had the cops he controlled guarding Ressler – who now basically lived with Liz – day in and day out, in case Tommy or his friends tried something. And Liz spent their time together desperately trying to bring him back to her, but nothing worked. He didn’t want to talk to her, and when they had sex it was hard and desperate, and she sensed it wasn’t so much that he wanted to be with her as he wanted to lose himself.

She’d always hated the term, ‘making love’, but she now realized that was what they’d been doing before. It hadn’t been like with Tom, where it was just strip, sex, done. It had been intimate, and teasing, and loving, and now it was gone, as dead as his father.

The night they had enough evidence to arrest Tommy, Ressler put his hand through her bathroom window, and hadn’t let anyone but Liz fix it.

She’d used tweezers to pull the glass out, and was wrapping his hand as she ranted at him. “I mean really Ressler, what were you hoping to accomplish? What did you think would happen? Or did you just not think at all, the way you never think about anything lately, you just walk around with that dead look in your eyes —” she taped the gauze together and dropped his hand, glaring, “— and that stupid, monotone voice acting like everything is hopeless, and I hate it. I know you’re in pain Ressler, but this is killing me to see you like this. Do you not get it? It’s killing me. Tell me you’re still in there, tell me you didn’t die with your dad, tell me you’re not leaving me like everyone else!” Her voice had built to a scream. Liz was fully aware of how selfish she was being, but she’d tried supportive and it had done nothing so she was changing tactics.

Ressler looked up as she finished, and reached up to kiss her. Liz braced herself for the brutal clash of teeth and skin that it had been lately, but it never came. Instead, it was slow, and gentle, and she felt his lips burn against hers the way they hadn’t since that night.

“I’m sorry,” Ressler breathed when he pulled away. “I don’t know how to handle this. It’s like someone turned off my gravity, and now I can’t even tell which way is up, I just know that everything’s wrong.”

Liz placed her hands on the side of his head and squeezed, waiting until he looked her in the eyes. “So let me help you.”

***

It took another two months but finally the jury handed down a verdict of guilty, and the judge gave Tommy life without parole. Liz squeezed his hand when it happened, and Ressler squeezed back.

They weren’t in the courtroom with Charlotte and Pete, instead they were sitting on Liz’s couch with Reddington and Dembe, watching it on the news.

Red declared karma was a ruthless mistress, before placing on one of his endless fedoras, and waltzing out.

Ressler had managed to stay somewhat caught up in his classes while everything was happening, and so he and Liz both graduated on time, although neither had any intention of going to college. They enrolled in Quantico, both graduating at the top of their classes, Liz taking additional ones to become a profiler, and Reddington became their CI, helping them bring in high value target after high value target, a surprisingly high number of them dirty law enforcement officers.

When they were twenty-four, they arrested Tom Keen on domestic violence and weapons charges.

When they were twenty-five, he asked Liz to marry him, and she said yes.

When they were twenty-eight, they adopted a little Russian girl named Agnes Rostova, who he and Liz doted on.

Two months later, after they’d finished tucking Agnes into bed, he helped Liz feel good the way she’d taught him on a kitchen table all those years ago, and she returned the favor immediately after. She fell asleep before him as she normally did, and he traced those patterns in the same place her back, where her wings would be if she were an angel, before joining her.

**Author's Note:**

> THIS FUCKING H KEY IS GOING TO MAKE ME THROW MY ENTIRE DAMN LAPTOP OUT THE WINDOW I SWEAR TO GOD  
> EDIT: I feel some sort of responsibility to add this. If someone does what Tom did, and takes off the condom without telling you, that is in fact a form of sexual assault because you did not consent to unprotected sex. Stay safe loves  
> Follow me on twitter @writer_gen


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